3-20Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (looking west with the Middle Kingdom mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II at left), Deir el-Bahri, Egypt, 18th
Dynasty, ca. 1473–1458 bce.
Hatshepsut was the first great female monarch whose name is recorded. Painted reliefs recounting her divine birth and significant achievements
adorned her immense funerary temple.
columns are yet another case of Egyptian builders’ translating per-
ishable natural forms into permanent architecture. Artists decorated
the tomb walls with paintings and painted reliefs, as in former times,
and placed statues of the deceased in niches.
The New Kingdom
Like its predecessor, the Middle Kingdom disintegrated, and power
passed to the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who descended on Egypt
from the Syrian and Mesopotamian uplands. They brought with them
a new and influential culture and that practical animal, the horse.
Their innovations in weaponry and war techniques ironically con-
tributed to their own overthrow by native Egyptian kings of the 17th
Dynasty around 1600–1550 BCE. Ahmose I (r. 1550–1525 BCE), final
conqueror of the Hyksos and first king of the 18th Dynasty, ushered in
the New Kingdom, the most brilliant period in Egypt’s long history. At
this time, Egypt extended its borders by conquest from the Euphrates
River in the east deep into Nubia to the south. A new capital—Thebes,
in Upper Egypt—became a great and luxurious metropolis with mag-
nificent palaces, tombs, and temples along both banks of the Nile.
Architecture
If the most impressive monuments of the Old Kingdom are its pyra-
mids, those of the New Kingdom are its grandiose temples, often
built to honor pharaohs and queens as well as gods. Great pharaonic
mortuary temples arose along the Nile in the Thebes district. These
shrines provided the rulers with a place for worshiping their patron
gods during their lifetime and then served as temples in their own
honor after their death. The temples were elaborate and luxuriously
decorated, befitting both the pharaohs and the gods.TEMPLE OF HATSHEPSUTThe most majestic of these
royal mortuary temples (FIG. 3-20), at Deir el-Bahri, honored the
female pharaoh Hatshepsut, one of the most remarkable women of
the ancient world (see “Hatshepsut, the Woman Who Would Be King,”
page 68). Some have attributed the temple to SENMUT(FIG. 3-27),
Hatshepsut’s chancellor and possible lover, who is described in two
inscriptions as royal architect. His association with this project is un-
certain, however. Hatshepsut’s temple rises from the valley floor in
three colonnaded terraces connected by ramps on the central axis. It
is remarkable how visually well suited the structure is to its natural
setting. The long horizontals and verticals of the colonnades and their
rhythm of light and dark repeat the pattern of the limestone cliffs
above. The colonnade pillars,which are either simply rectangular or
chamfered (beveled, or flattened at the edges) into 16 sides, are well
proportioned and rhythmically spaced.
In Hatshepsut’s day, the terraces were not the barren places they
are now but gardens with frankincense trees and rare plants the
pharaoh brought from the faraway “land of Punt” on the Red Sea.
Her expedition to Punt figures prominently in the poorly preservedThe New Kingdom 673-20AKing and
queen of Punt,
Hatshepsut
temple, ca.
1473–1458 BCE.